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Comment by steamer25 | Hacker News Reader

We just need to establish a legal precept that if the body cam footage isn't there to corroborate the cops' story, we assume the worst and they get held accountable for anything a plaintiff is able to plausibly allege. Under that scenario, most cops would become the biggest advocates for e.g., redundancies, backups and transparency.

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This seems to abolish the right to be "innocent until proven guilty". It's always possible to allege a crime that no one can prove didn't happen (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot), so without a presumption of innocence, the system essentially puts the accused at the mercy of the accuser.

I was actually thinking of it as an extension of the presumption of innocence on behalf of the citizenry and keeping the burden of proof on the government as a check against it's powers. Cops are citizens too but there is some level of surrender of your individual rights e.g., when you join the military. It'd be similar to that.

Another thought is the panopticon: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon . You don't necessarily need to stream and record every cop's cam, just randomize it without indicating to the cops who's getting recorded or when.

Given there aren't a lot of citizens randomly stopping officers to accuse them of crimes... I don't see a problem. The ISSUE right now is exactly what you've described - officers accusing citizens of crimes they didn't commit without proof beyond "their word".

As someone who has been falsely accused by an officer (fortunately a minor traffic violation that I was able to make go away by paying a small fine), I've lost any faith that officers are there to serve their constituents.

I've also been a victim of this. The police even held a mock-trial for me, with one acting as judge while his fellow officer and I both presented our sides of the story. I won't make assumptions about the likelihood of them ever actually telling another fellow officer they agree with a defendant, but it definitely did not happen in my case. Added insult to injury and a bit of a resentment towards the whole process for me and not much else.

Ive heard there are a lot of suspects accusing officers but body cams reduce the average amount of those accusations.

You are misapplying the right. That principle was devised explicitly to protect citizens from powerful entities.

That principle is not in contradiction with the principle that power must be held accountable.

Historically, that's why public figures are called "public" in opposition to "private".

Police need to be held to a higher standard than citizens. Currently, they're held to a ludicrously lower one. That has obvious, demonstrable consequences.

Not really, there isn't a presumption of guilt because first you must establish spoliation. Once it has been established that the video record is incomplete, it must be the duty of the police to provide evidence of the technical failing that allowed it to happen to clear them of wrongdoing. After all, the evidence was in their care. Even if it was simply negligence and not malice.

A much more feasible option would be to directly make it a law that camera footage must be producible on request, much like tax receipts, driver's insurance, transit passes and other such documents.

There would still be lots of details to get right, but at least it wouldn't violate the basic underlying principles of our legal system.

If the police are given any sort of beneficial presumption, either formally or informally, at least that presumption should be discarded in cases in which body cam footage turns up missing.

Take away their immunity if they can't produce the videos and try them as citizens. I can't recall the specific immunity but it's something like special immunity or classified immunity for police officers when on patrol.

Yeah, dropping "the assumption of regularity" is probably better.

But then this comes down to a jury, and most Americans still seem to trust their police officers. Just saying..

Then it sounds like there is a strong incentive to keep that camera on!

When cops' word weighs more than yours in a court of law, this requires an equivalent check against that power by only making it weigh that much when there is corroborating evidence (i.e., video proof).

While you are completely correct, it would force any rational being to make sure not only that they are wearing a camera, but that it is working too.

I know this won't be a popular comment but it never surprises me that this attitude that police should be guilty until proven innocent arrises. It seems to be the default setting. Just like the way everyone hates the police until they need them.

Everything is at some point the fault of the police. It seems like everyone wants the police to do only what they want them to and to be punished if the police do something different.

Now I don't come from the US so can't comment on the problems with the police there and I don't know how the police there are funded but I know from my country that some of the "solutions" stated to hold the police to account would bankrupt the police here, but then I suppose that's the fault of the police as well.

I'm all for bodycams though because at the end of the day when a fabricated complaint comes in (my experience is most of them are) then these can be easily dismissed and hopefully those people actually held to account.

I can't really believe there's a straight up choice between non-corrupt police and bankrupt police departments. It is true that US police seem to funded in ways that create incentives to corruption. An ideological commitment to low taxes means institutions like the police need to find other sources of revenue. This leads to a proliferation of regulations and drug and driving laws that can be used to impose fines, systems like civil forfeiture, and reliance on private "donations".

In the long term, this leads to a fundamentally adversarial and extractive relationship between the police and the populace, and the situation right now where police are widely hated, or at least distrusted, by significant sections of the population.

The solution to all of this is to break this extractive relationship: To prevent the police from profiting from the enforcement of some laws over others, or from seizing property only to sell it for their own gain. And, yes, to accept a rate of general taxation and redistribution that can be used to fund the institutions of a modern state. So long as the US continues to pursue the current tax model, the same shortfalls and perverse incentives to find alternative sources of revenue with exist, leading to the same poor outcomes in so many areas of government.

The US is not a monolithic entity, and various states handle civil asset forfeiture differently:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...

Many places in the US don't have these problems, so there is nothing to solve.

Ok so hunger isn't a problem because people in Europe are generally well-fed? This follows the same line of reasoning as the one you are using now.

My point was that localities differ greatly across the US (and Europe for that matter), and should be taken care of at a local level rather than from the centralized location of DC. I don't want to live in a police state, so I choose to live in a small town that doesn't have the issues that our big cities have.

Like I say I can't comment on the US system regards it's policing practices, from the outside looking in it all seems open to abuse. Where I come from the government funds the police, they don't make any profit from the likes of tickets etc.

Currently the police are savagely being under funded as are all public sectors and crime is on the rise but the difference between the police and other public services is that people seem to understand why the other public services are not performing as good as they were, but it's the fault to the police they aren't performing as good.

Like I said I would love to see bodycams on all police but as with every public body ICT project it will be mismanaged and cost way more than it needs to. Currently the police where I am can't afford it.

Crime is not on the rise and the police are not underfunded(0). Where did you get this information?

(0) Their pension plans are underfunded, but those plans are rediculous compared to private sector plans.

The person you are responding to stated that they are not in the US.

We dont hate the police, but have no method to keep them accountable and awful behavior has been proven endemic in police forces around the country.

Why is it hateful to the police to actually ask for their interactions? As the modern authoritarian state asks its citizens, what do you have to hide?

Well like I said I'm not from the US and have no answers to a system that seems completely and obviously open to abuse. I'm always puzzled why it's the way it is in the US, the whole justice system seems like a farce especially the way the courts work.

I'm all from transparency, not only does it keep the cops right but it also means cops are safe from fabricated complaints they are subject to. I just find some of the ideas here about how to do this ridiculous from a reality perspective. And to suggest that the police should be presumed guilty it actually worse than ridiculous.

Which country?

The problem is that we are raising expectations for police behavior and are unwilling to recruit and pay for that kind of staffing.

It seems people want police to be johnny-on-the-spot when it comes to cracking down on crime immediately while simultaneously exercising extreme discretion and self-control when it comes to respecting legal rights and responsibilities.

I'm not sure who could even fulfill those kinds of expectations but it would be someone like a grizzled experienced prosecutor who has defense lawyer experience who is in good physical condition and is physically well trained.

I doubt the pool of people who meet those criteria are willing to work for police salaries.

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